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robocanceller
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= R =
robotn.
Seebot.
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robust
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rococo
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robot
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= R =
robustadj.
Said of a system that has demonstrated an ability to recover gracefully from the whole range of exceptional inputs and situations in a given environment. One step belowbulletproof. Carries the additional connotation of elegance in addition to just careful attention to detail. Comparesmart, opposebrittle.
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rococo
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rogue
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robust
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rococoadj.
Terminallybaroque. Used to imply that a program has become so encrusted with the software equivalent of gold leaf and curlicues that they have completely swamped the underlying design. Called after the later and more extreme forms of Baroque architecture and decoration prevalent during the mid-1700s in Europe. Alan Perlis said: "Every program eventually becomes rococo, and then rubble." Comparecritical mass.
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rogue
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room-temperature IQ
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rococo
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rogue
1. [Unix] n. A Dungeons-and-Dragons-like game using character graphics, written under BSD Unix and subsequently ported to other Unix systems. The original BSDcurses(3)screen-handling package was hacked together by Ken Arnold primarily to support games, and the development ofrogue(6)popularized its use; it has since become one of Unix's most important and heavily used application libraries. Nethack, Omega, Larn, Angband, and an entire subgenre of computer dungeon games (all known as `roguelikes') all took off from the inspiration provided byrogue(6); the popular Windows game Diablo, though graphics-intensive, has very similar play logic. See alsonethack. 2. [Usenet] adj. AnISPwhich permits net abuse (usually in the form ofspamming) by its customers, or which itself engages in such activities. Rogue ISPs are sometimes subject toIDPs orUDPs. Sometimes deliberately mispelled as "rouge". See alsonethack,moria,Angband.
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room-temperature IQ
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root
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rogue
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= R =
room-temperature IQquant.
[IBM] 80 or below (nominal room temperature is 72 degrees Fahrenheit, 22 degrees Celsius). Used in describing the expected intelligence range of theluser. "Well, but how's this interface going to play with the room-temperature IQ crowd?" Seedrool-proof paper. This is a much more insulting phrase in countries that use Celsius thermometers.
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root
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root mode
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room-temperature IQ
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= R =
rootn.
[Unix] 1. Thesuperuseraccount (with user name `root') that ignores permission bits, user number 0 on a Unix system. The termavataris also used. 2. The top node of the system directory structure; historically the home directory of the root user, but probably named after the root of an (inverted) tree. 3. By extension, the privileged system-maintenance login on any OS. Seeroot mode,go root, see alsowheel.
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root mode
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rot13
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root
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root moden.
Syn. withwizard modeor `wheel mode'. Like these, it is often generalized to describe privileged states in systems other than OSes.
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rot13
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rotary debugger
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root mode
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= R =
rot13/rot ther'teen/ n.,v.
[Usenet: from `rotate alphabet 13 places'] The simple Caesar-cypher encryption that replaces each English letter with the one 13 places forward or back along the alphabet, so that "The butler did it!" becomes "Gur ohgyre qvq vg!" Most Usenet news reading and posting programs include a rot13 feature. It is used to enclose the text in a sealed wrapper that the reader must choose to open -- e.g., for posting things that might offend some readers, orspoilers. A major advantage of rot13 over rot(N) for other N is that it is self-inverse, so the same code can be used for encoding and decoding. See alsospoiler space, which has partly displaced rot13 since non-Unix-based newsreaders became common.
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rotary debugger
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round tape
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rot13
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rotary debuggern.
[Commodore] Essential equipment for those late-night or early-morning debugging sessions. Mainly used as sustenance for the hacker. Comes in many decorator colors, such as Sausage, Pepperoni, and Garbage. SeeANSI standard pizza.
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round tape
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RSN
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rotary debugger
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= R =
round tapen.
Industry-standard 1/2-inch magnetic tape (7- or 9-track) on traditional circular reels. Seemacrotape, opposesquare tape.
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RSN
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RTBM
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round tape
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= R =
RSN/R-S-N/ adj.
SeeReal Soon Now.
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RTBM
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RTFAQ
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RSN
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RTBM/R-T-B-M/ imp.
[Unix] Commonwealth Hackish variant ofRTFM; expands to `Read The Bloody Manual'. RTBM is often the entire text of the first reply to a question from anewbie; thesecondwould escalate to "RTFM".
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RTFAQ
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RTFB
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RTBM
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RTFAQ/R-T-F-A-Q/ imp.
[Usenet: primarily written, by analogy withRTFM] Abbrev. for `Read the FAQ!', an exhortation that the person addressed ought to read the newsgroup'sFAQ listbefore posting questions.
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RTFB
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RTFM
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RTFAQ
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= R =
RTFB/R-T-F-B/ imp.
[Unix] Abbreviation for `Read The Fucking Binary'. Used when neither documentation nor source for the problem at hand exists, and the only thing to do is use some debugger or monitor and directly analyze the assembler or even the machine code. "No source for the buggy port driver? Aaargh! Ihateproprietary operating systems. Time to RTFB."
Of the various RTF? forms, `RTFB' is the least pejorative against anyone asking a question for which RTFB is the answer; the anger here is directed at the absence of both sourceandadequate documentation.
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RTFM
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RTFS
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RTFB
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RTFM/R-T-F-M/ imp.
[Unix] Abbreviation for `Read The Fucking Manual'. 1. Used bygurus to brush off questions they consider trivial or annoying. CompareDon't do that then!. 2. Used when reporting a problem to indicate that you aren't just asking out ofrandomness. "No, I can't figure out how to interface Unix to my toaster, and yes, I have RTFM." Unlike sense 1, this use is considered polite. See alsoFM,RTFAQ,RTFB,RTFS,STFW,RTM, all of which mutated from RTFM, and compareUTSL.
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RTFS
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RTI
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RTFM
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RTFS/R-T-F-S/
[Unix] 1. imp. Abbreviation for `Read The Fucking Source'. Variant form ofRTFM, used when the problem at hand is not necessarily obvious and not answerable from the manuals -- or the manuals are not yet written and maybe never will be. For even trickier situations, seeRTFB. Unlike RTFM, the anger inherent in RTFS is not usually directed at the person asking the question, but rather at the people who failed to provide adequate documentation. 2. imp. `Read The Fucking Standard'; this oath can only be used when the problem area (e.g., a language or operating system interface) has actually been codified in a ratified standards document. The existence of these standards documents (and the technically inappropriate but politically mandated compromises that they inevitably contain, and the impenetrablelegalesein which they are invariably written, and the unbelievably tedious bureaucratic process by which they are produced) can be unnerving to hackers, who are used to a certain amount of ambiguity in the specifications of the systems they use. (Hackers feel that such ambiguities are acceptable as long as theRight Thingto do is obvious to any thinking observer; sadly, this casual attitude towards specifications becomes unworkable when a system becomes popular in theReal World.) Since a hacker is likely to feel that a standards document is both unnecessary and technically deficient, the deprecation inherent in this term may be directed as much against the standard as against the person who ought to read it.
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RTI
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RTM
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RTFS
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RTI/R-T-I/ interj.
The mnemonic for the `return from interrupt' instruction on many computers including the 6502 and 6800. The variant `RETI' is found among former Z80 hackers (almost nobody programs these things in assembler anymore). Equivalent to "Now, where was I?" or used to end a conversational digression. Seepop; see alsoPOPJ.
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RTM
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RTS
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RTI
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RTM/R-T-M/
[Usenet: abbreviation for `Read The Manual'] 1. Politer variant ofRTFM. 2. Robert Tappan Morris, perpetrator of the great Internet worm of 1988 (seeGreat Worm); villain to many, naive hacker gone wrong to a few. Morris claimed that the worm that brought the Internet to its knees was a benign experiment that got out of control as the result of a coding error. After the storm of negative publicity that followed this blunder, Morris's username on ITS was hacked from RTM toRTFM.
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RTS
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rude
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RTM
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RTS/R-T-S/ imp.
Abbreviation for `Read The Screen'. Mainly used by hackers in the microcomputer world. Refers to what one would like to tell thesuitone is forced to explain an extremely simple application to. Particularly appropriate when the suit failed to notice the `Press any key to continue' prompt, and wishes to know `why won't it do anything'. Also seen as `RTFS' in especially deserving cases.
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rude
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runes
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RTS
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rude[WPI] adj.
1. (of a program) Badly written. 2. Functionally poor, e.g., a program that is very difficult to use because of gratuitously poor (random?) design decisions. Opposecuspy. 3. Anything that manipulates a shared resource without regard for its other users in such a way as to cause a (non-fatal) problem. Examples: programs that change tty modes without resetting them on exit, or windowing programs that keep forcing themselves to the top of the window stack. Compareall-elbows.
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runes
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runic
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rude
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runespl.n.
1. Anything that requiresheavy wizardryorblack arttoparse: core dumps, JCL commands, APL, or code in a language you haven't a clue how to read. Not quite as bad asline noise, but close. Comparecasting the runes,Great Runes. 2. Special display characters (for example, the high-half graphics on an IBM PC). 3. [borderline techspeak] 16-bit characters from the Unicode multilingual character set.
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runic
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rusty iron
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runes
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runicadj.
Syn.obscure. VMS fans sometimes refer to Unix as `Runix'; Unix fans return the compliment by expanding VMS to `Very Messy Syntax' or `Vachement Mauvais Système' (French idiom, "Hugely Bad System").
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rusty iron
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rusty memory
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runic
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rusty ironn.
Syn.tired iron. It has been claimed that this is the inevitable fate ofwater MIPS.
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rusty memory
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rusty wire
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rusty iron
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rusty memoryn.
Mass-storage that uses iron-oxide-based magnetic media (esp. tape and the pre-Winchester removable disk packs used inwashing machines). Comparedonuts.
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rusty wire
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S/N ratio
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rusty memory
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rusty wiren.
[Amateur Packet Radio] Any very noisy network medium, in which the packets are subject to frequent corruption. Most prevalent in reference to wireless links subject to all the vagaries of RF noise and marginal propagation conditions. "Yes, but how good is your whizbang new protocol on really rusty wire?".
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= S =
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= T =
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= R =
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The Jargon Lexicon